The 2011 UK Census counted 3.1 million residents of Wales. Of these, 73% (2.2 million) reported having no Welsh language skills. Of the residents of Wales, 25% of the population are not from the country. Of the residents of Wales aged three and over, 19% (562,000) reported being able to speak Welsh, and 77% of these were able to speak, read, and write the language (making 431,000 - 15% of the total population).[15] This can be compared with the 2001 Census, in which 20.8% of the population (582,000) reported being able to speak Welsh.[16] In surveys carried out between 2004 and 2006, 57% (315,000) of Welsh speakers described themselves as fluent in the written language.[17]

A greeting in Welsh is one of 55 languages included on the Voyager Golden Record chosen to be representative of Earth in NASA's Voyager program launched in 1977.[18] The greetings are unique to each language, with the Welsh greeting being Iechyd da i chwi yn awr ac yn oesoedd, which translates into English as "Good health to you now and forever".[19][20]

The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 gave the Welsh language official status in Wales,[21] making it the only language that is de jure official in any part of the United Kingdom, English being de facto official.

Throughout Wales, roadsigns are bilingual with Welsh and English (e.g. Chepstow is the English name, also given as Cas-gwent which is the Welsh name). The language that appears on the signs first is decided by the local government.

Contents

History1

Density of the Welsh-speaking population2

Official status3

Vocabulary4

Orthography5

Grammar6

Phonology6.1

Morphology6.2

Syntax6.3

Other features of Welsh grammar6.4

Possessives as direct objects of verbnouns6.4.1

Pronoun doubling6.4.2

Counting system7

Dialects8

Registers9

Examples of sentences in literary and colloquial Welsh9.1

Welsh Bible10

Welsh in education11

Welsh in information technology12

Mobile phone technology12.1

Welsh in warfare13

Use of Welsh at the European Union14

See also15

Notes16

References17

External links18

History

Four periods are identified in the history of Welsh, with rather indistinct boundaries: The period immediately following the language's emergence from Brittonic is sometimes referred to as Primitive Welsh;[22] this was followed by the Old Welsh period, considered to stretch from the beginning of the 9th century to the 12th century.[22] The Middle Welsh period is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, which in turn divided into Early and Late Modern Welsh.

The name Welsh originated as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning "foreign speech" (see Walha). The native term for the language is Cymraeg and Cymru for "Wales".

Density of the Welsh-speaking population

The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.

Welsh has been spoken continuously in Wales throughout recorded history but by 1911 it had become a minority language, spoken by 43.5% of the population.[23] While this decline continued over the following decades, the language did not die out. By the start of the twenty-first century, numbers had begun to increase again. The 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey showed 21.7% of the population of Wales to be Welsh speakers,[24] compared with 20.8% in the 2001 census, and 18.5% in 1991. The 2011 census, however, showed a slight decline to 562,000, or 19% of the population.[25] The census also showed a "big drop" in the number of speakers in the Welsh-speaking heartlands, with the number dropping to under 50% in Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire for the first time.[26]

The number of Welsh speakers in the rest of Britain has not yet been compiled for statistical purposes. In 1993, the Welsh-language television channel S4C published the results of a survey into the numbers of people who spoke or understood Welsh, which estimated that there were around 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London area.[27] The Welsh Language Board, on the basis of an analysis of the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study, estimated there were 110,000 Welsh-speakers in England, and another thousand in Scotland and Northern Ireland.[28]

Welsh-speaking communities persisted well on into the modern period across the border with England. Archenfield was still Welsh enough in the time of Elizabeth for the bishop of Hereford to be made responsible, together with the four Welsh bishops, for the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Welsh. Welsh was still commonly spoken here in the first half of the nineteenth century, and churchwardens’ notices were put up in both Welsh and English until about 1860.[29]

Historically, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh.[30] Over the course of the twentieth century this monolingual population "all but disappeared", but a small percentage remained at the time of the 1981 census.[31] Most Welsh speakers in Wales also speak English (while in Chubut Province, Argentina, most speakers can speak Spanish – see Y Wladfa). However, many Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain and the social context, even within a single discourse (known in linguistics as code-switching).

Welsh as a first language is largely concentrated in the north and west of Wales, principally Powys, although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales.

Trilingual (Spanish, Welsh and English) sign in Argentina

Official status

Although Welsh is a minority language, support for it grew during the second half of the 20th century, along with the rise of organisations such as the nationalist political party Plaid Cymru from 1925 and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) from 1962.

The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 provide that the Welsh and English languages be treated equally in the public sector, as far as is reasonable and practicable. Each public body is required to prepare for approval a Welsh Language Scheme, which indicates its commitment to the equality of treatment principle. This is sent out in draft form for public consultation for a three-month period, whereupon comments on it may be incorporated into a final version. It requires the final approval of the now defunct Welsh Language Board (Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg). Thereafter, the public body is charged with implementing and fulfilling its obligations under the Welsh Language Scheme. The list of other public bodies which have to prepare Schemes could be added to by initially the Secretary of State for Wales, from 1993–1997, by way of Statutory Instrument. Subsequent to the forming of the National Assembly for Wales in 1997, the Government Minister responsible for the Welsh language can and has passed Statutory Instruments naming public bodies who have to prepare Schemes. Neither 1993 Act nor secondary legislation made under it cover the private sector, although some organisations, notably banks and some railway companies, provide some of their literature through the medium of Welsh.

On 7 December 2010, the Welsh Assembly unanimously approved a set of measures to develop the use of the Welsh language within Wales.[32][33] On 9 February 2011, this measure received Royal Approval and was passed, thus making the Welsh language an officially recognised language within Wales.[34] The Measure:

confirms the official status of the Welsh language;

creates a new system of placing duties on bodies to provide services through the medium of Welsh;

creates a Welsh Language Commissioner with strong enforcement powers to protect the rights of Welsh speakers to access services through the medium of Welsh;

establishes a Welsh Language Tribunal;

gives individuals and bodies the right to appeal decisions made in relation to the provision of services through the medium of Welsh

creates a Welsh Language Partnership Council to advise Government on its strategy in relation to the Welsh language;

allows for an official investigation by the Welsh Language Commissioner of instances where there is an attempt to interfere with the freedom of Welsh speakers to use the language with one another.[35]

With the passing of this measure, public bodies and some private companies will be required to provide services in it, though it remains to be seen which companies will have to comply. The Minister for Heritage, Alun Ffred Jones, said, "The Welsh language is a source of great pride for the people of Wales, whether they speak it or not, and I am delighted that this Measure has now become law. I am very proud to have steered legislation through the Assembly which confirms the official status of the Welsh language; which creates a strong advocate for Welsh speakers and will improve the quality and quantity of services available through the medium of Welsh. I believe that everyone who wants to access services in the Welsh language should be able to do so, and that is what this government has worked towards. This legislation is an important and historic step forward for the language, its speakers and for the nation."[35] The measure was not welcomed warmly by all supporters; Bethan Williams, chairperson of language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, gave a mixed response to the move, saying, "Through this measure we have won official status for the language and that has been warmly welcomed. But there was a core principle missing in the law passed by the Assembly before Christmas. It doesn't give language rights to the people of Wales in every aspect of their lives. Despite that, an amendment to that effect was supported by 18 Assembly Members from three different parties, and that was a significant step forward."[36]

On 5 October 2011, Meri Huws, Chair of the Carwyn Jones said that Meri will act as a champion for the Welsh language, though some had concerns over her appointment; Plaid Cymru spokeswoman Bethan Jenkins said, "I have concerns about the transition from Meri Huws's role from the Welsh Language Board to the language commissioner, and I will be asking the Welsh government how this will be successfully managed. We must be sure that there is no conflict of interest, and that the Welsh Language Commissioner can demonstrate how she will offer the required fresh approach to this new role." She started her role as the Welsh Language Commissioner on 1 April 2012.

Local councils and the National Assembly for Wales use Welsh, to varying degrees, issuing their literature and publicity in Welsh versions (e.g. letters to parents from schools, library information, and council information) and most road signs in Wales are in English and Welsh, including the Welsh placenames. However, some references to destinations in England are still given in English only, even where there are long-established Welsh names (e.g. London: Llundain; The [English] Midlands: Canolbarth Lloegr).

Since 2000, the teaching of Welsh has been compulsory in all schools in Wales up to age 16, and that has had a major effect in stabilising and to some extent reversing the decline in the language. It means, for example, that even the children of non-Welsh-speaking parents from elsewhere in the UK grow up with a knowledge of or complete fluency in the language.

Although most road signs throughout Wales are bilingual, the wording on currency is in English only. The one exception is the legend on Welsh pound coins dated 1985, 1990 and 1995 (which are legal tender in all parts of the UK): Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad, which means "True am I to my country") and derives from the national anthem of Wales, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. The new British coinage from 2008 will not bear any Welsh language at all, despite being designed by a resident of North Wales and being minted at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales. Although many shops employ bilingual signage, Welsh still rarely appears on product packaging or instructions.

The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel S4C in November 1982, which until digital switchover in 2010 broadcast 70% of Channel 4's programming along with a majority of Welsh language shows[39] during peak viewing hours. The all-Welsh-language digital station S4C Digidol is available throughout Europe on satellite and online throughout the UK. Since the digital switchover was completed in South Wales on 31 March 2010, S4C Digidol became the main broadcasting channel and fully in Welsh. The main evening television news provided by the BBC in Welsh is available for download.[40] There is also a Welsh-language radio station, BBC Radio Cymru, which was launched in 1977.

There is, however, no daily newspaper in Welsh, the only Welsh-language national newspaper Y Cymro ("The Welshman") being published once a week. A daily newspaper called Y Byd ("The World") was scheduled to be launched on 3 March 2008, but was scrapped,[41] owing to poor sales of subscriptions and the Welsh Government deeming the publication not to meet the criteria necessary for the kind of public funding it needed to be rescued. There is, however a Welsh-language online news service which publishes online news stories in Welsh called Golwg360.

In contrast to English practice, "w" and "y" are considered vowel letters in Welsh along with "a", "e", "i", "o" and "u".

The letter "j" is used in many everyday words borrowed from English, like jam, jôc "joke" and garej "garage". The letters "k", "q", "v", "x", and "z" are used in some technical terms, like kilogram, volt and zero, but in all cases can be, and often are, replaced by Welsh letters: cilogram, folt and sero.[43] The letter "k" was in common use until the sixteenth century, but was dropped at the time of the publication of the New Testament in Welsh, as William Salesbury explained: "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth". This change was not popular at the time.[44]

The most common diacritic is the circumflex, which disambiguates long vowels, most often in the case of homographs, where the vowel is short in one word and long in the other: e.g. man "place" vs mân "fine", "small".

Syntax

Colloquial Welsh inclines very strongly towards the use of auxiliaries with its verbs. The present tense is constructed with bod ("to be") as an auxiliary verb, with the main verb appearing as a verbnoun (loosely equivalent to an infinitive) after the particle yn:

Mae Siân yn mynd i Lanelli

Siân is going to Llanelli.

Here mae is the third-person present form of bod, and mynd is the verb meaning "go". The imperfect is constructed in a similar manner, as are the periphrastic forms of the future and conditional tenses.

In the preterite, future, and conditional tenses, there are inflected forms of all verbs (which are invariably used in the written language). However, it is more common nowadays in speech to use the verbnoun together with the inflected form of gwneud ("to do"), so "I went" can be Mi es i or Mi wnes i fynd. Mi is an example of a preverbal particle; such particles are common in Welsh.

Other features of Welsh grammar

Possessives as direct objects of verbnouns

The Welsh for "I like Rhodri" is Dw i'n hoffi Rhodri (word for word, "am I in [the] liking [of] Rhodri"), where Rhodri is in a possessive relationship with hoffi. With personal pronouns, the possessive form of the personal pronoun is used, as in "I like him" : Dw i'n ei hoffi – literally, "am I in his liking" – "I like you" is Dw i'n dy hoffi ("am I in your liking").

Pronoun doubling

In colloquial Welsh, possessive pronouns - whether used to mean "my", "your", etc., or to indicate the direct object of a verbnoun - are commonly reinforced by the use of the corresponding personal pronoun after the noun or verbnoun: ei dŷ e "his house" (literally "his house of him"), Dw i'n dy hoffi di "I like you" ("I am [engaged in the action of] your liking of you"), etc. It should be noted that this "reinforcement" (or, simply, "redoubling") adds no emphasis in the colloquial register. While the possessive pronoun alone may be used (as is especially common in more formal registers, as shown above), it is considered incorrect to use only the personal pronoun; such usage is nevertheless sometimes heard in very colloquial speech, mainly among young speakers: Ble 'dyn ni'n mynd? Tŷ ti neu dŷ fi? ("Where are we going? Your house or my house?").

Counting system

The traditional counting system used by the Welsh language is vigesimal, which is to say it is based on twenties, as in standard French numbers 70 (soixante-dix, literally "sixty-ten") to 99 (quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, literally "four twenties nineteen"). Welsh numbers from 11 to 14 are "x on ten", 16 to 19 are "x on fifteen" (though 18 is deunaw, "two nines"); numbers from 21 to 39 are "1–19 on twenty", 40 is "two twenties", 60 is "three twenties", etc. This form continues to be used, especially by older people, and it is obligatory in certain circumstances (such as telling the time).[45]

There is also a decimal counting system, which has become relatively widely used, though less so in giving the time, ages, and dates (it features no ordinal numbers). This system is in especially common use in schools due to its simplicity, and in Patagonian Welsh. Whereas 39 in the vigesimal system would be pedwar ar bymtheg ar hugain ("four on fifteen on twenty"), in the decimal system it would be tri deg naw ("three tens nine").

While there is only one word for "one" (un), it triggers the soft mutation (treiglad meddal) of feminine nouns, other than those beginning with "ll" and "rh". There are separate masculine and feminine forms of the numbers "two" (dau and dwy), "three" (tri and tair) and "four" (pedwar and pedair), which must agree with the grammatical gender of the objects being counted.

Dialects

There is no standard or definitive form of the Welsh language. Although Northern (known as Gog from the word North, gogledd) and Southern (known as Hwntw from Hwynthwy which means 'They Themselves' or 'Them') Welsh are the two main dialects, additional variations exist between counties. In the 1970s, there was an attempt to standardise the language by teaching 'Cymraeg Byw' - a colloquially-based form of Welsh.[46] But the attempt largely failed because it did not encompass the regional differences used by native Welsh speakers.

The differences in dialect are marked in pronunciation and vocabulary but also in minor points of grammar. For example: consider the question "Do you want a cuppa [a cup of tea]?" In the north this would typically be Dach chi isio panad? while in the south it would be more likely Ych chi'n moyn dishgled? (though in the South one would not be surprised to hear Ych chi isie paned? among other possibilities). An example of a pronunciation difference between Northern and Southern Welsh is the tendency in southern dialects to palatalise the letter "s", e.g. mis (month), would tend to be pronounced [miːs] in the north, and [miːʃ] in the south. This normally occurs next to a high front vowel like /i/, although exceptions include the pronunciation of sut "how" as [ʃʊd] in the south (compared with northern [sɨt]).

Much more fine-grained classifications exist beyond north and south: the book Cymraeg, Cymrâg, Cymrêg: cyflwyno'r tafodieithoedd ("Welsh, Welsh, Welsh: introduction to dialects")[47] about Welsh dialects was accompanied by a cassette containing recordings of fourteen different speakers demonstrating aspects of different dialects. The book refers to the earlier Linguistic Geography of Wales[48] as describing six different regions which could be identified as having words specific to those regions. An alternative traditional classification was of four dialects - Y Wyndodeg, the language of

^"Taking Tea and Tortes With the Welsh In Distant Argentina". The New York Times. 3 April 2005. Retrieved 6 April 2010.

^Roberts, Peter (1998), "Wales and the British Inheritance", in Bradshaw, Brendan; Roberts, Peter, British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533-1707, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 24

See also

In November 2008, the Welsh language was used at a meeting of the European Union's Council of Ministers for the first time. The Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones addressed his audience in Welsh and his words were interpreted into the EU’s 23 official languages. The official use of the language followed years of campaigning. Jones said "In the UK we have one of the world’s major languages, English, as the mother tongue of many. But there is a diversity of languages within our islands. I am proud to be speaking to you in one of the oldest of these, Welsh, the language of Wales." He described the breakthrough as "more than [merely] symbolic" saying "Welsh might be one of the oldest languages to be used in the UK, but it remains one of the most vibrant. Our literature, our arts, our festivals, our great tradition of song all find expression through our language. And this is a powerful demonstration of how our culture, the very essence of who we are, is expressed through language."[66]

Use of Welsh at the European Union

Secure communications are often difficult to achieve in wartime. Cryptography can be used to protect messages, but codes can be broken. Therefore, lesser-known languages are sometimes encoded, so that even if the code is broken, the message is still in a language few people know. For example, Navajocode talkers were used by the United States military during World War II. Similarly, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a Welsh regiment serving in Bosnia, used Welsh for emergency communications that needed to be secure.[65] Welsh was not used in the Falklands War because of the Welsh-speaking Argentine population in Patagonia.

Welsh in warfare

On Android devices, user-created keyboards can be used,.[64] On iOS devices Welsh accented characters such as ŵ, ŷ, ô and ï are available by pressing and holding the characters on the virtual keyboard, and the Calendar can also be shown in Welsh.

In 2006 the Welsh Language Board launched a free software pack which enabled the use of SMSpredictive text in Welsh.[61] At the National Eisteddfod of Wales 2009, a further announcement was made by the Welsh Language Board that the mobile phone company Samsung was to work with the network provider Orange to provide the first mobile phone in the Welsh language,[62] with the interface and the T9 dictionary on the Samsung S5600 available in the Welsh language. The model, available with the Welsh language interface, has been available since 1 September 2009, with plans to introduce it on other networks.[63]

Mobile phone technology

As with many of the world's languages, the Welsh language has seen an increased use and presence on the internet, ranging from formal lists of terminology in a variety of fields[58] to Welsh language interfaces for Mozilla Firefox and a variety of Linux distributions, and on-line services to blogs kept in Welsh.[59] A variety of websites are also available in Welsh: the social networking site Facebook has offered a Welsh version since 2009, and WorldHeritage since July 2003.[60]

Welsh in information technology

, which is a platform for academic research in Welsh and is published quarterly.
Gwerddon (Welsh Language National College) was established. The purpose of the federal structured college, spread out between all the universities of Wales, is to provide and also advance Welsh medium courses and Welsh medium scholarship and research in Welsh universities. Over the next few years, it is expected that there will be at least 100 lecturers who teach through the medium of Welsh in subjects ranging from law, modern languages, social sciences, and also other sciences such as biological sciences. There is also a Welsh-medium academic journal called Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol All universities in Wales teach courses in Welsh. Aberystwyth, Cardiff, Bangor, and Swansea have all had chairs in Welsh since their virtual establishment, and all their schools of Welsh are successful centres for the study of the Welsh language and its literature, offering a BA in Welsh as well as post-graduate courses. Following a commitment made in the One Wales coalition government between Labour and Plaid Cymru, the [57] Under the [54]
Welsh is now widely used in education, with 20% of all pupils in Wales being taught at Welsh-medium schools.

Sign promoting the learning of Welsh

The Aberystwyth Welsh School (Ysgol Gymraeg Aberystwyth) was founded in 1939 by Sir Ifan ap Owen Edwards, the son of O.M. Edwards, as the first Welsh Primary School. The headteacher was Norah Isaac. Ysgol Gymraeg is still a very successful school, and now there are Welsh language primary schools all over the country. Ysgol Glan Clwyd was established in Rhyl in 1955 as the first Welsh language school to teach at the secondary level.

Towards the beginning of the 20th century this policy slowly began to change, partly owing to the efforts of Owen Morgan Edwards when he became chief inspector of schools for Wales in 1907.

In the later 19th century virtually all teaching in the schools of Wales was in English, even in areas where the pupils barely understood English. Some schools used the Welsh Not, a piece of wood, often bearing the letters "WN", which was hung around the neck of any pupil caught speaking Welsh. The pupil could pass it on to any schoolmate heard speaking Welsh, with the pupil wearing it at the end of the day being given a beating. One of the most famous Welsh born pioneers of higher education in Wales was Sir Hugh Owen. He made great progress in the cause of education and more especially, the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, of which he was chief founder. He has been credited with the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889, following which several new Welsh schools were built. The first was completed in 1894 and named Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen.

In July 1846, three commissioners, R.R.W. Lingen, Jellynger C. Symons and H.R. Vaughan Johnson, were appointed to inquire into the state of education in Wales; the Commissioners were all Glencoe and the Amritsar of Welsh history".[53]

This unrest brought the state of education in Wales to the attention of the English establishment since social reformers of the time considered education as a means of dealing with social ills. The Times newspaper was prominent among those who considered that the lack of education of the Welsh people was the root cause of most of the problems.

The decade around 1840 was a period of great social upheaval in Wales, manifested in the Chartist movement. In 1839, 20,000 people marched on Newport, resulting in a riot when 20 people were killed by soldiers defending the Westgate Hotel, and the Rebecca Riots where tollbooths on turnpikes were systematically destroyed.

Welsh in education

Welsh Bible

The labels colloquial and literary are in fact convenient approximations: literary constructions occur in formal writing and speech while the majority of Welsh writing found on the Internet or in magazines, is closer to colloquial usage. This has also become more common in artistic literature, as in English.

In fact, the differences between dialects of modern spoken Welsh pale into insignificance compared to the difference between some forms of the spoken language and the most formal constructions of the literary. The latter is considerably more conservative and is the language used in Welsh translations of the Bible, amongst other things (although the Beibl Cymraeg Newydd – New Welsh Bible – is significantly less formal than the traditional 1588 Bible). Gareth King, author of a popular Welsh grammar, observes that "The difference between these two is much greater than between the virtually identical colloquial and literary forms of English".[51] A grammar of Literary Welsh can be found in A Grammar of Welsh (1980) by Stephen J. Williams, or more completely in Gramadeg y Gymraeg (1998) by Peter Wynn Thomas. (No comprehensive grammar of formal literary Welsh exists in English.)

Examples of sentences in literary and colloquial Welsh

Amongst the characteristics of the literary, as against the spoken, language are a higher dependence on inflected verb forms, different usage of some of the tenses, less frequent use of pronouns (since the information is usually conveyed in the verb/preposition inflections) and a much lesser tendency to substitute English loanwords for native Welsh words. In addition, more archaic pronouns and forms of mutation may be observed in Literary Welsh.

Modern Welsh can be considered to fall broadly into two main styles—Colloquial Welsh (Cymraeg llafar) and Literary Welsh (Cymraeg llenyddol). The grammar described on this page is that of Colloquial Welsh, which is used in most speech and informal writing. Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh standardised by the 1588 translation of the Bible and is found in official documents and other formal registers, including much literature. As a standardised form, literary Welsh shows little if any of the dialectal variation found in colloquial Welsh. Some differences include:

Registers

Another dialect is Patagonian Welsh, which has developed since the start of the Welsh settlement in Argentina in 1865; it includes Spanish loanwords and terms for local features, but a survey in the 1970s showed that the language in Patagonia is consistent throughout the lower Chubut valley and in the Andes.

[49]

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